


Like An Empty House

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Interior Decorating, Rebuilding, Recovery, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nerdanel finally returns to Tirion after the Darkening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like An Empty House

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Legendarium Ladies April! 
> 
> I had intended to do something earlier but I’ve been procrastinating as usual xD This came to me pretty much out of the blue.
> 
> Inspired mainly by the ‘Swedish Interiors’ picture and partially by the ‘Darkness’ theme.

She knew she would have to do something about the paintwork, at the very least.

The whole place was a mess. The paint was peeling on the walls, the parquet floor was cracked and awash with dirt, the windows nearly caked over with grime. In short, the house needed _work_.

She hadn't visited in years; had instead locked herself away in the countryside, wallowing in anguish and regret.

But today marked the end. _No more_ , her body cried. _No more_.

The furniture was covered in sheets, the dust so thick it puffed upward in clouds whenever she brushed against anything. Only a little light filtered in through the dirty windows. The house was decaying, maybe even enough to call it a ruin, having lain untouched for many years. Other hands were too wary to risk soiling themselves with this place. Here, the mere walls breathed history.

The house was being left to deteriorate, to fall apart. Perhaps others felt that would be a good metaphor for those who had lived here.

It would be disheartening, to anyone else. But not to her.

Footsteps picked their way carefully across the cracked floor behind her. "Do you think you will be able to save it?" Eärwen’s voice asked.

She breathed out, one long, low breath. "I will save it."

Eärwen stopped a little distance away. "It will be a challenge," she said, ever honest.

"One I will gladly take."

There was silence for a while. Eärwen’s footsteps moved away a little; perhaps she had been moved to inspect something in the still room.

Breaking the silence before it stifled her, Nerdanel asked in a low voice, "Why did you leave it like this?"

Eärwen didn't answer for a long moment. "We...were not sure what to do with it." There was a heavy pause before she continued. "We could not give it to anyone else."

"Not that anyone else would take it," Nerdanel muttered before she could stop herself.

Eärwen made no comment about that. "We had a home of our own already. It felt wrong to turn it into a public space. I would have asked what you wished done with it, but you were not...receiving visitors at the time."

_Trust Eärwen to put it like that_. Nerdanel could never quite believe she had been untactful in her youth, as Anairë described her. Perhaps because she was so used to being the untactful one. "It doesn't matter now," she said. "I am going to save it."

"If you need anything..." Eärwen left the sentence hanging.

Nerdanel nodded. "Yes. I will let you know."

/

It had taken a good few months, and they had been months full of hard work. She didn't resent it, though; in fact, she almost welcomed it. Throwing herself into the project had given her something to focus on, something to achieve. She was almost sad it was over.

_Half over_ , she corrected herself. She had disposed of much of the furniture, either out of personal choice or because it had become too rotten and broken to be saved. She had at least a month of interior decorating left to finish.

She stood in one of the brightly lit upstairs rooms, sunlight pouring in through the now clean windows, their panes all replaced and sparkling. The new floor filled the room with the comforting smell of oak, and the fresh coat of white paint on the walls fairly glowed in the sun.

She had kept and restored the coat of arms above the doorway. A little thing, something easily overlooked, but she couldn't bring herself to remove it.

_The past and the present intermingle here_ , she thought.

Perhaps it was only fitting. 


End file.
